Post navigation

You above all others

I’ve been thinking about Tarzan lately. You know, the guy who can get you through the jungle alive? I saw the new movie, and Alexander Skarsgaard is still Eric-hot, but that’s not why it keeps running though my head.

It’s that whole keep-you-alive-slay-all-enemies-you-above-all-others mentality. The original Tarzan had that, and I’m glad to see that it stayed alive through this newest incarnation. Jane is everything. Absolutely everything.

He goes back to the jungle because she wants to. He chases her to the exclusion of everything else. He jumps off cliffs, dives into dangerous waters, and just physically propels himself in the direction he thinks she is in. Maybe those other things matter–you know, fighting gorillas, rescuing slaves, slaying evildoers, all that–but they all disappear into the background when Jane is in the picture.

That’s the kind of guy you want, right? The one who will get you through the jungle, fight to save you, literally run right off the edge of a cliff and jump off because he heard you scream from somewhere beyond the edge? That’s the kind of guy I write about. Sort of.

And that’s what I’ve really been thinking about. As I finish the second novel, I’m starting to see my menfolk a little differently. I thought Rory was Tarzan all along–saving Hannah from this and that (and more often from herself)–but it’s not her Hannah or nothing else in the world. Not really. What I’m realizing is that Klauden is turning out to be my Tarzan–and I never realized it until now. No spoilers here, but yeah. Klauden runs right off several cliffs in pursuit of his goal–and I never quite noticed it. I guess I’m more like Hannah than I realized!